Information is compiled on people at an astronomical rate. This compiled information includes: government, security, and criminal related data; demographic information; financial and credit history; purchasing and buying behavior; psychographics and interests; friend, family, colleague, co-worker, and other social network association data; internet usage, clickstream, and online behavioral data; genome and medical/health information; third party activity, and other confidential, non-confidential, private, and public information collected by various entities. Collectors of this information include individuals, private companies, public companies, nonprofits, government and military branches, investigative/criminal/intelligence agencies, and more.
Data companies primarily collect data on people for profit purposes. This includes criminal histories, driver's license data, vehicle registration records, credit histories, marriage and divorce records, Social Security Numbers (SSN), dates of birth, clickstreams, actions of individuals, names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates, and significant amounts of other data. Known data warehouse and email append companies may even carry hundreds of data elements on a particular individual, including household income, marital status, number of children, subscriptions to particular publications, vehicle preferences, etc.
These entities may often collect information on consumers with neither the consumers' consent nor knowledge. Consumers have no way of checking the source, accuracy, and privacy of the data. This may limit and penalize the individual's reputation. This may also restrict delivery of certain products or services, promote delivery of irrelevant information and spam, and limit other benefits that consumers may enjoy. Many entities that collect information on consumers will not disclose information collected on a consumer and do not offer partial or complete data opt-out from their databases. This creates an imbalance of control and power towards these entities with very little check and balance that may otherwise be provided by consumers.
Changes in the storage and retention of consumer data may come about by legislation and consumer focused policies demanding changes. At this time, legislation is currently being passed pertaining to the issue of consumer control of their information. The “Shine the Light” law (California Civil Code section 1798.83) imposes specific disclosure requirements on many businesses that share their consumers' personal information with other businesses for direct marketing purposes. This is a step in the direction for a more consumer-centric data control, but further initiatives and steps are necessary.
Credit Report Agencies (CRAs) collect financial and credit related information on consumers. In the past, CRAs collected and shared this information with financial institutions without the consumer's consent or knowledge. Consumers have demanded their information to be made available and as a result, consumers may now access not only their credit report and score, but also their credit history and which entity or institution queried their credit report.
A consumer's credit report is created with data about that particular consumer from many different sources. The source of credit is displayed on the credit report along with other financial information pertaining to the line of credit. In checking for inaccuracies and errors, the consumer may use this source information to get to the root of the inaccuracy or error. For instance, if an incorrect amount of credit is listed in the credit report, the consumer may contact the issuer of the credit or the source displayed on the credit report, provide proper information, and fix the incorrect amount or other inaccuracies.
Displaying the source of credit enables consumers to take control in correcting credit report information with CRAs, especially given the fact that many credit reports in general contain inaccuracies and errors. In the July 2000 issue of Consumer Reports, it was cited that more than 50% of the credit reports checked contained errors. To supplement this, a survey conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in 2004 found that one in four credit reports contained serious errors. Credit reports are used to make a number of critical decisions that go far beyond your ability to obtain credit cards and loans, including renting an apartment, seeking employment, and obtaining insurance. These individuals thereby suffer with a damaged reputation, credibility, and creditworthiness and cannot enjoy the same benefits as other individuals. Although state and federal laws provide individuals with the right to have errors corrected, some consumers who have had errors corrected find the incorrect information reappears at a later time.
Facebook's “Beacon” advertising medium allows advertisers to channel Facebook users to advertise their services or products. When a Facebook user makes a purchase for a product or service from a third party that happens to be a Facebook advertiser, Facebook displays on the user's Facebook profile (with permission), the product and the source of the product purchased. This semi-public information is visible to the Facebook user's network and anyone within the network may be able to see the source and the particular third party from which the user purchased the product or service. In this example, Facebook is leveraging source attribution as an advertising medium and therefore for profit purposes.
Other attribution systems are limited to organizational intranets. These systems relate to documents and affinities towards keywords or terms within a document to create profiles on individuals within the intranet. This information is not publicly available and is limited to a small niche of individuals within a workplace intranet for example. Also, the data sources are contained within the intranet, as opposed to coming from outside, third party sources.